My Angel's Orders
by Lady of the Paradox
Summary: A new modern twist on Macbeth. Rated just to be safe. If I owned Macbeth I would be like 400 years old. Shakespeare owns Macbeth.


Okay, so here's another English class inspired fanfic. This time Macbeth is in the spotlight. So the task was to flip a key discourse and modernize the play.

Makes writing sound boring, huh? Well anyway, instead of supernatural beings influencing the false king, I decided that I would flip the discourse to a scientific reason. There's a kind of twist at the end.

Like always if you can't see what I've done I'm happy to post a list of character swaps and changes and a kind of outline of what I've done. It's no extra effort, cos I already typed it up for my English teacher.

Love and irony,

LotP xx

My Angel's Orders

Max snuck quietly around the corner. If he made any noise at all they would know he was on to them. He would lose all he had so far gained. The white walls and harsh lighting had almost blinded him at first, but now his eyes were adjusted.

_The lighting is good, _his angel had said_, it hides your shadow; they won't know you're coming._

His angel had helped him through so much. It had been his angel's suggestion that he kill Dover Baines, the tyrant who had made these halls an unjust and painful place. Max smiled, there had been no pain since Dover's blood had run over his hands and made intricate patterns over the linoleum and tiles. Now Max was in charge. The other white-robed miscreants in this god-forsaken hall all gave him a wide berth as he walked down the halls, those who once considered themselves above him, with their clipboards and smug tones, looked fearful whenever they noticed him watching.

_You are a king now, they respect and fear you as they should._

For now though Max was on a mission to find those who had first prophesied his rise to power. The witches. Their ability to see the future was a secret that few knew, except for himself and Barney, his friend….

_His death was unavoidable. He was going to take everything away. He was going to take charge and become like Dover… Do you want that? The pain? The weakness?_

No. He didn't, that's why he had done what he had. No one deserved that… He had to know more though. Who else would try to stop his reign of painlessness? And so he went forth towards the three women who had never stopped behaving as though they were above him.

"Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble, something wicked this way comes!" he heard something sing through the door.

Max burst through the door "Aha! I heard your chanting this time!" he screamed at three women dressed in white, drinking the foul brew that they claimed was coffee.

"Settle down, Max. We were only watching a movie. The song was from Harry Potter." said the youngest one.

"Is that the name your master calls himself by now?" he cried.

Rather than the indignation and annoyance that he expected, Max's outburst was met by exhausted looks and the sluggish setting down of cups.

"Now how did you get out of your room this time, Max? Did Sydney let you out?" asked the blonde one.

"Your messenger came for me. Told me that now I could see the cards…" he announced.

"So, Sydney did let you out. Why didn't you allow him to escort you here, Maxwell?" the tall woman questioned.

"I am King! I need no criminal treatment! I may go where I choose! Your Sydney is evil! He is working against us all!" Max cried, face flushed with excitement and fury.

"Of course, Max, of course. Now we'd best get started with your card therapy." She responded calmly.

_They have it all ready. I told you they know things… Now we shall see how to proceed. No one can stop us now._

Max sat on the couch and the women arranged themselves around him. The blonde one pulled out the first card.

"Now Max tell me what you see here." she told him.

The image on the card swirled in front of his eyes, changing and shifting between ink spatters and legible pictures, until it finally settled on the image of an armed head. The image caused Max fear somewhere deep inside of him. Even his angel seemed disturbed. It at once caused him to think of a lion, Max's only irrational fear, and the only fear he had to compare this with.

"Lions…. Damn lions…" he cursed.

"Is that what you see, Maxwell?" questioned the young woman.

"No. I see an armed head. It's disgusting… It tells me that I have none to fear but the lion…" he replied, speaking of the lion that had plagued him since childhood. It had started as a friend but morphed into a great enemy.

"It's okay Max, the lion can't get you here. It can't get you." The tall woman murmured.

The blonde woman changed the cards over. "Now what do you see?"

The image again swirled and changed, shifting and sliding like snakes dancing until again, an image stood out. A child dripping with blood. Mauled and stricken, but still standing. Clearly the cards were showing him what he must have looked like after the lion abandoned his friendship. When the lion had attacked him, yet he was still standing.

"The child is covered in blood. The lion could not defeat him." Max said softly, completely immersed in the image before him.

"It'd take a lion-man to take you down alright…" muttered the tall woman.

"Hush! Keep your opinions to yourself!" hissed the blonde woman.

Max took no notice of them, but his angel did.

_Did you hear that? A man lion will get you! The tall witch prophesied it! They do not want you to hear! Yet it could never happen. Not unless it was summoned and these women do not have any such power. We are safe for now._

Once again the women changed cards. Again the patterns eddied around the card before finally settling into a recognizable shape. This time a child wearing a crown held a tree on the card before him.

_No child could possibly hold an entire tree in their palm of their hand. This is proof. They cannot stop us now. We will control this entire hall! Soon we shall find a way out as well._

"The child wears a crown and holds tree. The lion has lost! The angel and I have won!" Max whispered victoriously.

"Okay Max, one more now." The young woman said, breaking the almost reverent atmosphere that had settled around Max.

This time there was almost no movement. The image took form quickly. Barney. The angel hissed in anger.

_Even from the grave, he is mocking us! Damn witches, they are doing this to punish us for trying to learn more from them._

The angel's last words infuriated Max and he almost roared jumping up from the couch he was sitting on.

"You foul witches! How dare you use Barney to tease me! You will pay for this! I will make you pay for this! I am in control! My angel and I have read your cards! We are supreme!" Max screamed.

Two men dressed in white burst into the room. The first man grabbed Max from behind and wrestled him to a halt while the other quickly jabbed a syringe into Max's arm. Max gave one last roar before giving way to the unnatural sleep.

Later that day in an office on the other side of the complex, the three women sat in front of a desk. Behind the desk was a distinguished looking gentleman with blonde hair and dark eyes. The nameplate in front of him read Malcolm Baines.

"So ladies", he said placing his elbows on the mahogany desk and clasping his hands. "You've been Maxwell's nurses for three years now, I understand. My father's notes say that you're the only staff he will accept talking back to him. I also know that Maxwell fatally attacked both my father and his last doctor, a Barney O'Neill, under the orders of a voice he calls his angel. Can you tell me more about this?"

The young nurse spoke up. "Max is a paranoid schizophrenic. He had issues with an imaginary lion as a child, those around him assumed that it was just an imaginary friend. However, as his mind deteriorated, Max's lion attacked him. Since then he has had an irrational fear of lions, something that has translated into his current delusions."

"Please explain his delusions to me." Malcolm ordered.

This time the tall nurse answered him. "He seems to believe that three of us are witches. He thinks that our coffee is magic brew and that we serve Satan. Today when he came to see us, he thought that our Harry Potter DVD was us singing to Satan. Under your father's control of this institution, Max underwent electric-shock therapy. Rather than fix the problem, it only seems to have exacerbated it. Max and his angel decided that Dover was a tyrant and on your father's next rounds to the rooms, Max killed him in what he saw as a successful attempt to stop a tyrant. In Max's eyes, he won a battle. However, Doctor O'Neill tried to take him to his electric-shock therapy the next day and Max saw it as an attempt to become a new tyrant, and so he killed Barney as well."

"Why weren't appropriate measures taken to stop this happening?" Malcolm frowned down at his hands.

"They were. Max has a history of acting out with weapons. He used his bare hands to strangle Barney and his anger seemed to make him stronger. We couldn't pull him off." The tall nurse answered again.

"Adrenaline rush strength. I see. So, he has killed both the head of the hospital and his doctor. Well, ladies, for the past few days I have had a new doctor watching Max. He also observed the visit today." Malcolm pressed a buzzer, "Janice could you let Matthew in please?"

The door at the back of the room opened and a tall, powerful looking man walked in.

"Ladies, I'd like you to meet Matthew Leo. He's worked in some of the best institutions for the criminally insane, he wanted to slow down in his particular field, but I've asked him to take over Max's case. Matthew, what do you think of Max so far?" Malcolm asked.

"Well," Matthew started in a deep bass voice, "he's quite far gone. I've looked at his records and I've observed his behaviour. I'll keep working with him if you want, but I've seen this before. My recommendation would be lethal injection."

"We don't have staff for that kind of thing here. We'd have to take him to a criminal facility." Malcolm interrupted.

"I have experience in this sort of thing. If you need I will carry it out." Matthew said simply.

While this was happening in front of them, the nurses had sat quietly. Now the blonde nurse gave a dry, humourless snort. Matthew and Malcolm turned to look at her in surprise.

"I'm sorry, it's not good taste, but if I don't laugh, I'll have to cry," she defended herself.

"What on earth brought this on?" Malcolm asked.

The tall nurse spoke up again. "It's a cruel irony, that a man with a phobia of lions should be destroyed by a man named after one, Mr Leo. I had just said today that it would take a lion-man to stop Max. I guess it's going to happen after all."

In light of these somber words, the three nurses walked out to say goodbye to Max's still sleeping form. They had worked with him for too long not to feel sorry at his end or to feel sick at the cruel twist of life that caused him to end at the hands of a lion-man.


End file.
